City Hall is
called by the Achaians the "Hall of the People"; 203 and if he enter
it, it may not be that he shall come forth until he is about to be
sacrificed. They related moreover in addition to this, that many of
these who were about to be sacrificed had before now run away and
departed to another land, because they were afraid; and if afterwards
in course of time they returned to their own land and were caught,
they were placed 204 in the City Hall: and they told how the man is
sacrificed all thickly covered with wreaths, and with what form of
procession he is brought forth to the sacrifice. This is done to the
descendants of Kytissoros the son of Phrixos, because, when the Achaians
were making of Athamas the son of Aiolos a victim to purge the sins of
the land according to the command of an oracle, and were just about to
sacrifice him, this Kytissoros coming from Aia of the Colchians rescued
him; and having done so he brought the wrath of the gods upon his own
descendants. Having heard these things, Xerxes, when he came to the
sacred grove, both abstained from entering it himself, and gave the
command to his whole army to so likewise; and he paid reverence both to
the house and to the sacred enclosure of the descendants of Athamas.

198. These then are the things which happened in Thessalia and in
Achaia; and from these regions he proceeded to the Malian land, going
along by a gulf of the sea, in which there is an ebb and flow of the
tide every day. Round about this gulf there is a level space, which in
parts is broad but in other parts very narrow; and mountains lofty and
inaccessible surrounding this place enclose the whole land of Malis and
are called the rocks of Trachis. The first city upon this gulf as one
goes from Achaia is Antikyra, by which the river Spercheios flowing from
the land of the Enianians 205 runs out into the sea. At a distance of
twenty furlongs 206 or thereabouts from this river there is another,
of which the name is Dyras; this is said to have appeared that it
might bring assistance to Heracles when he was burning: then again at
a distance of twenty furlongs from this there is another river called
Melas.

199. From this river Melas the city of Trachis is distant five furlongs;
and here, in the parts where Trachis is situated, is even the widest
portion of all this district, as regards the space from the mountains to
the sea; for the plain has an extent of twenty-two thousand plethra.
207